Work what ya got

Well hello!! I got a fun little project accomplished yesterday that I absolutely LOVE. :)

It started with some house envy, believe it or not. :) Yes, even I see beautiful homes in blogland and sometimes that little green monster starts rearing it’s head. You all know I LOVE our house, so it’s not a big monster, mind you -- just a little one.

I just love little corners, niches, interesting spots in homes, and I adore how some people use awkward spots to their full potential. Like hallways – I just love a long hallway with hardwood floors, a beautiful runner and woodwork as far as the eye can see. Add a gallery of family photos and I’m swooning.

I have a recurring dream about a house we buy and are fixing up, and in each dream I find a new little nook or a tiny room I didn’t know was there before. I LOVE that dream. :)

But alas, we have no nooks, no niches. Not even a hallway. Not one hallway in our entire house. That’s the new open concept for ya – plenty of open spaces (which we love), but sometimes I do crave a little nook.

About a month ago or so, I realized we a needed a storage solution for our son’s dress up stuff. Now, not dress up like princess dresses. Manly dress up like policemen, train conductors and firemen.

(Insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunt here.)

So I thunk and I thunk, and I thought of the closest thing to a hallway we have – the half wall in our playroom/loft:

And the idea hit me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

First step was to paint the wall out in semi-gloss white:

Didn’t he do a great job?:

I kid! I kid! No child labor here folks.

Mostly because he wasn’t doing it right.

I kid! Not really.

OK, onward! You’ll notice I didn’t even paint the edges of the wall. I didn’t need to because it was going to be covered up with my next step. I took primed mdf from Lowe’s and started installing my vision:

I took some video to give some more detail, but it’s so straightforward – boards across the top, bottom and sides. Then I did some measuring to figure out the spacing between the rest of the boards.

The math went like this – the space between the two outside boards was almost exactly six feet. So I took:

6 feet x 12 (for inches) = 72 inches

The boards were 3.5 inches wide, so I figured out how many sections I wanted (five) and knew that would take four additional pieces of mdf:

3.5 (mdf boards) x 4 = 14 inches

Take the 72 inches minus 14 and you get 58 inches.

Divide 58 inches by the five sections I wanted, and you get 11.6 sections between each vertical board.

Does that make sense? Math and I are not friends, and I swear it’s easy. Once you do it one time, it’ll make more sense for the next time. :) I use that method for any spot where I’m adding molding to a specific amount of space (and I want it to look uniform.)

I took a quick video to show you a couple of my other tricks:

 

Sooo…anyhoo, after a couple more coats of paint on the mdf, some caulk (remember, it’s your BFF folks!), and hooks – I got this:

Isn’t it gorgeous? I mean, really. I want it all. over. my. house. ALL OVER. It’s just classic and pretty and yummy.

I can’t believe how happy woodwork makes me. It’s just ridiculous.

Now we have a spot for all of the make believe outfits:

I almost hated to cover it all up, but it’s for the sake of my sanity. Those hats have been laying around here and there for months because I haven’t found a good spot for them.

I especially love how it ties into the mdf I added to the staircase last year:

And you smarties will notice that NO, I have not painted that railing yet. Only the bottom section is done:

That is how I roll. :)

I just love how it turned out! I took an empty wall that wasn’t doing anything:

And made it functional and pretty:

Gotta love that!

The wood was el cheapo – I think I spent $15 on the mdf. I got the ORB hooks at Lowe’s as well. Love, love, LOVE!

Now I’m so pumped to get moving on the board and batten in the office! My plan is to get started on that this weekend.

Have a GREAT one!

I do what I want

I may have mentioned five or 95 times that I do not like the way we set up our family room when we built our house. I so wish would have just gone with the model specs – cause they worked.

But no, no, no. We had to be all, Let’s smush the windows together. Yeah! And, Let’s put in a corner fireplace, it will be so cool. YEAH! And, Let’s have all of the TV and surround system wiring installed in the itty bitty wall right next to the (awesome!) corner fireplace. Yeahhhhh!

None of these things work. :) Both hubs and I have said for quite some time that our family room is the only space that bothers us in our house. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Drats.

When we have a party, the family room seems to get so cramped – because it is. We like to call it cozy, because it is. :) But the thing is, it’s not a small room – it measures 16 by 18 feet (at the longest points). That's HUGE!

Other than the way we set it up, there’s a few other issues. First of all, much of the room is a walkway between the garage and the rest of the house. Then, there’s the fact that we only have one full wall in the whole space. Open floor plans are great, but they come with their own issues. :) And finally, we’ve had a regular sized sofa and a loveseat in the room:

It’s a lot of furniture for this space. And I tell you what…by the end of last year it was starting to drive me a little mad.

I chalk it up to the end of the season hives that start popping up right before Christmas…the desire I start getting to get our house back to normal. Clean. Spacious. I love that feeling of putting everything away and having our house feel brand new again!

I had an idea that would help solve the cramped cozy feeling in the room…I was going to take out one of the sofas.

But I hesitated. I mean, was I allowed to do that? Really? Remove seating?

Would the sun stop shining? The birds stop chirping? The world fall off it’s axis?

And then I realized…geez Louise. It’s our house. We’re allowed to do whatever we want. :) As long as we like it, who cares? I could remove it all and put floor pillows in there, and as long as we like it and our guests were comfy, why does it matter?

So I did it. As soon as Christmas was packed up, I started. First, I pulled the loveseat out of the way and eyed it. I LOVED IT. I pulled it away even further, and I was SOLD.

Hellooooo space!!!:

Even though I loved it, it took some getting used to. I kept asking myself, am I really allowed do this? We only have seating for three or four people now.

But, interestingly enough – only three people live here. ;) And at the most, when my stepdaughter is home from school, it’s four.

Perfect.

One of us ends up on the floor half the time anyway. So…I called hubby to look, and his first reaction was I LOVE IT. Then, it was, wait…is it OK to not have another place to sit?

Seriously, are there couch police or something?

I never looked back though. Every. single. time. I walk in our house now, I feel lighter. We have space people!:

The only bad part – now that there’s no loveseat to block it, we can see all the critters, cords (GAH!!) and cars that live in the dust under the dresser:

It’s a price I’m willing to pay. :)

Removing the loveseat has quite literally doubled our usable space in here. No longer is the Bub quarantined to a five by four foot space to play. We can spread out to play games. I actually have plenty of room to lay down and do sit ups:

Stop laughing!

Wait, that’s me. Laughing. At myself. I don’t lay down and do sit ups. :)

Soon we will be getting a new sofa (with a chaise attached) after we finish paying off our debt. We hope to fit a small chair in the room as well, but we’ll have to see. (The current furniture is in sad, sad shape, which I’ll show you soon.)

But in the meantime, I found an adorable little poof on clearance at Meijer:

 

It’s so freakin’ cute! It’s really an ottoman, but it looks like one of those poofs to me. For $35, it serves as an extra seat that we can move around the room. LOVE!

Now, because I caught it in action, I will show you the daily occurrence at our house – the throwing of all the pillows on the floor. I give you, for your viewing pleasure, my son and his thought process…

Oh, look at that! What a pretty, soft pillow! I should lay my head on it!:

But noooo, why would I do that? It would look so much better on the floor. Daddy agrees, he does it every day too. I’m just gonna put it right down…

On. the. floor. It’s SO much better there, right?

And…he’s laughing. Awesome.

Anyone else have this problem with the children/men in their lives? :)

You know what’s funny? It’s been pretty awesome to have just one sofa – we’ve ended up all cuddled together every evening. (I’d like to say that was my plan all along!)

And I figure, if we have a party before we get a new sofa and need more seating, we’ll just pull out the folding chairs. EGADS. (Heaven forbid.)

It’s worth it to me:

Here’s a few before and after shots – with the loveseat:

Sans the loveseat:

With:

Without:

I tried removing the end table to the left of the sofa, but it was a bit too stark for me. For now, it’s staying. (This angle makes it look like it’s sticking way out, but it’s not.)

I love the change!! I was able to pull the sofa away from the wall a bit, which always bugged me. Because we don’t have to worry about the loveseat sticking out, I also pulled the sofa closer to the TV, so we have a BUNCH more space in the eating area in the kitchen. It fixed a number of issues that bugged me for YEARS about our great room space.

I’ve been thinkin’, and have a few more ideas for a slight reworking of this room. It will depend on how much the quote is from some professionals, but I’ll let you know if anything comes of it. :)

For now, we’re enjoying what feels like a brand new family room!

Before:

And now….ahhhhh:

It may not be for everyone, but that’s OK. It’s our house and whateva whateva, we do what we want! (Name that show.)

Now…if I could just get rid of that massive subwoofer next to the TV cabinet, all would be right in my world. (They make smaller ones, but for a much larger price.)  :)

Is there something you’ve held back on doing in your house because you feel like it’s not allowed? Who said? Who cares? It’s YOUR home. Enjoy it, live in it. Do what makes it more comfortable for YOU. :)

P.S. The rug is from HomeGoods. The coffee table from Goodwill. The drapes I made myself. The sofa table is from Ikea. The dresser was a Craigslist find. :) You can all of the family room posts here.

P.P.S. The loveseat is in the basement. I shoved it down there today by myself – it has been in our dining room for a week, and I couldn’t take it anymore. :) Hear me roar! Or call me crazy.

P.P.S.S. (??) We’ve tried the layout every single way possible before now – I mean…every. single. way. The loveseat is too long to go in front of the window – it goes right up against the fireplace and looks odd. Then the long sofa is pushed way too far out in the walkway. Angling the sofa makes for a weird configuration with the sofa table/kitchen. (Thank you for the ideas though – you never know if something will work!!)  :)

A hidden memo board

WOW!!

What a surreal day! TDC was highlighted on The Nate Berkus show today and it’s been so cool seeing all the new visitors around here! :) (I don’t think the segment is up on his site, but I’ll video tape it and post it for those who didn’t see it if you’d like!)

Thanks to Nate for the wonderful mention on his show, welcome to my new visitors and thanks again to my readers for all your sweet comments. Whew. Crazy!!

OK…only to the organization goodness. I started this project just a teensy while ago. OK, maybe it was about eight months ago. It’s sat half way done for all that time.

About eight months and day ago…I decided I was tired of the all of our random notes, phone numbers and pizza coupons cluttering up the side of the fridge, so I had a bahhhrilliant idea. I still had magnetic paint from the chalkboard I created in our kitchen years ago:

(You can find out more about that process here. )

I decided to utilize the cabs right next to the fridge – I wanted to paint the insets of the doors (inside) with that fun magnetic paint and make it into a little, private memo board.

I was all YAY – I’ll use what I have, it will take about 20 minutes, and BOOYAH I am good. Well, in my world, as soon as you think it or say it out loud, the opposite happens. Like when I was five minutes early to a dinner the other night (which never, ever EVER happens) and congratulated myself (to myself). Then I drove into the parking lot only to realize I was supposed to be at another location fifteen minutes away.

Gah.

Anyway…I know better to say it out loud folks.

The thing with magnetic paint is that it needs to be shaken SUPER, freaky, well. Every time I’ve used it before, I’ve taken it to the hardware store and have it done in their machine. If you don’t, the magnetic goodness sits at the bottom no matter how well you stir. At least for me. I must be a wimp, cause I can’t get that stuff up into the paint to save my life.

Because I didn’t have much paint left (and Paint Guy tells me they can’t put an almost empty can in the shaker), I figured I could mix it myself.

About five coats later I finally gave in. The stuff was not magnetizing – so the inside of the doors sat like this for eight months:

Isn’t that lovely. I had taped them off, but I left the tape up there so long, it wouldn’t come off all the way:

So when I decided to finally tackle this again, I had to use an x-acto knife to get the tape off:

It had become one with the cabinet after all this time. :)

I got it cleaned up and went ahead with my idea to fix my failed idea. I found some perfectly sized pieces of galvanized metal at a local True Value:

For MONTHS I tried to find the perfect metal pieces to fit in there – I’d find the right size, take it home and find out they weren’t magnetic. GAH!

Then I got galvanized metal roofing stuff (that was magnetic), but I was going to have to cut it all down to make it work…and I just needed a teeny bit, not a whole roll.

So THIS stuff was perfect!! It was something like 80 cents a sheet? And I found it at a little bitty small town True Value store – who would have thunk that?

I put it up with hot glue, just in case I ever wanted to take it down:

I am NEVER taking it down, now that it’s done. But you know, just in case. :)

Now I could hang our random bits of paper! But when I went to find our magnets, I couldn’t find one. It had been so long since I started this project, I had gotten rid of ALL of them in a purge. :)

Since I’ve been feeling crafty lately, I decided to make some new magnets. I made some of these cuties last year for little Christmas gifts:

(Sorry for the crappy pics – my battery was dying on me!)

I know…you’re wondering why I didn’t just use these. :) Well, I found them when I dug through my craft stuff – I forgot I still had some. And I remembered that the roll ‘o magnet that I used on the back of them last year wasn’t nearly strong enough for my liking.

And I wanted to craft darn it! OK?!

So I gathered my supplies:

The French Onion dip is optional. :)

You can find these little glass jobbies at any craft store – I think they’re a few bucks for a bag?:

I use Aleene’s clear glue:

Just brush it on the back – you don’t have to use much!:

I kind of forgot that and globbed it on. It took forever for them to dry!

Just lay them glue side down on the paper. You’ll want to push them onto the paper well, so all of the air bubbles come out. After they dry, use an x-acto knife and trace around them to cut each one out.

I used some heavy duty magnets from True Value for these, and glued them on with liquid nails:

Oh yeah…they’re totally Christmasified:

   

Aren’t they too cute?!

I used some square glass pieces I had as well -- they make adorable little magnets too:

I was so motivated, I printed out a list of pizza places and their phone numbers:

Now our pizza place memo board is complete! And caauuute!:

Now the coupons, lists and phone numbers are hidden, but still easily accessible. All for less than $3 in metal sheets – that is what I’m talking about!

And it only took eight months! I rock.  ;)

Unless your kitchen is all fabulous and you have ALL glass cabs, you could easily do this to the inside of any cabinet! Five useless coats of magnetic paint not necessary. :)

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

 

Thank you to my sponsor!:

Tricky Tricky! (Window treatments)

Howdy! I still haven’t heard from two of the winners of the HomeGoods cards -- Cammy and Stephanie, holla at me!

So, remember when I showed you the start of our bedroom redo a couple of months ago? Remember the purple drapes?:

Oh my. They were looking pretty sad.

They were left over from the room before…and before. :) But obviously it was time for them to go. Then one of my lovely readers, Missy, told me about some drapes online at JCPenney – they were beautiful, they were the rust color I wanted, they had long lengths, they were reversible, aaaand they were only $12.99 each!

Ding! Ding! Ding! SCORE.

I was sold! I love the look of really full drapes, so I got the 95” length and got four panels. I was thrilled when I got them and they were the perfect color! I showed you the drapes in this post, when I was trying to figure out the area above the bed:

Yes, I think I know what I’m doing now…but no I’m not ready to show it just yet. :) Evil, I know.  :)

So anyhoo, I knew the plain rust side was a bit much, so I was planning to add a touch of cream to pull in the colors from the new bedding. My original thought was to trim them out with a thick band of grosgrain ribbon. Or maybe even use cream fabric paint.

But that’s a LOT of ribbon for four 95” panels. And the paint idea just sounded like a headache waiting to happen. (Taping off straight lines for miles – thanks but no thanks.)

I mentioned the drapes are reversible – the back side was a beautiful buffalo check print. When I hung the drapes the night we got them, I held up the check side and hubs and I both though they may read a bit too country for our taste.

But the other day I turned them around, just to see…and oh. my. I was in LURVE. I also left the rust side on the other end of the window for a good week, just to make sure my love was real.

It was. I was hooked on the check. :)

(I showed you a peek last week in my “Mom Cave” post.)

It’s slightly shimmery, it’s got the dark rust, a lighter rust, and it’s got the cream I was looking for all this time. AND it was there in front of us all along. I love when it works out for FREE.

When it comes to hanging my drapes, there’s a few things I do that I get asked about a lot -- the first is what I do to make them look pleated. I learned this little trick from a fellow decorator I used to work with…and it right up there with the top three window treatment tips ever. (In my itty bitty opinion.)

It’s good peeps. Really good. :)

Custom made drapes (or any nice treatments) are made with drapery hooks – and the hooks are used to hang them. They give the fabric a full, pleated, custom look when hung and look like this:

I’ve made all of the treatments in our home, (up till now!). I rarely sew them (I’m a hemming tape and iron kind of girl) and when I do sew I can barely do a straight line -- so doing something like the hooks is way over my head. I tried it once and let’s just say it just didn’t go well…at all. :)

The little trick I learned doesn’t need these dodads -- all you need are your rings with hooks. Instead of clipping your drapery rings to the top of the window treatment, or putting the rod through the top of the drapes…pull your fabric up, pinch it in sections and clip the back of the fabric from behind:

Like so:

You’ll notice I used two different types of rings – half of them were $1.99 at the thrift store, but I needed more to get the full look I was going for. They didn’t have to match cause you can’t even see them! 

See? Tricky tricky! ;)

I like to clip each side of the treatment, then the middle, then do the rest in (fairly) equal sections:

It does not have to be perfect. At least in our house.

The end result really depends on the fabric – this fabric is perfect! It’s just stiff enough to keep the pleats standing up, even though I have them clipped a good five inches down from the top.

Every once and a while (like every six months) I need to poof them up, but otherwise it works GREAT:

If you have a thinner fabric, you can still do this, but you’ll have to clip much higher on the fabric. Does that make sense? Otherwise you’ll have floppy pleats. And no one likes floppy pleats. :)

The result is a very custom look, without the custom price (or work!):

I do this with ALL of our drapes and absolutely love the look!

My second little trick is my short rods. I get a lot of questions on where to buy the short rods I use.

Well…you can’t. At least I haven’t found them -- that’s why I DIY my own. :)

Most of our drapes aren’t operational – we don’t close them for privacy because we have the roman shades. Because of that, I prefer not to use a long rod across the window. It’s just a personal thing – I don’t mind the look at all, but it can get costly to get a rod long enough to go the width of a double window.

So I just cut them myself – if it’s a wood rod, like in our family room:

I just use my miter box or saw to cut a long rod down to the size I want:

Then use a drill bit to add a new hole at the ends for the finials. That’s it!

I love doing this because it makes your drapes seem fuller than they are, and you can use a cheaper rod (maybe four feet?) and cut that down, instead of a huge six or eight foot one.

For metal rods, I use a tool you can find in the plumbing department:

 

I think it’s about $8? You just put the pole in, tighten, and turn it so the tool can cut it. It takes a few minutes, but it’s easy!

Of course, you’ll need two sets of finials and brackets, so sometimes that can override the whole saving money on the rod thing.  ;)

(Drats.)

Have I mentioned I LOVE my new-but-not-really drapes?:

You’ll notice in the pics above that the window is really close to the wall to the left…it seems the architects don’t consider our window treatments when building our homes! How could they NOT? Helloooo…it’s right up there with support beams and insulation and all the important stuff!

When I have a window that butts up against a wall like that, I just skip the finial. I didn’t use them at all in the Bub’s room:

I promise no one will notice. And if they do, give them a cookie. :)

So here’s one more shot (are you tired of seeing this spot yet?!) with our buffalo check drapes, DIY rods and pleats:

And the kitty was trying to get in every. single. shot. So here you go:

:)

JCPenney’s still has the drapes for sale! Even the 108” length is only $12.99 a panel. That’s crazy good! I could not even begin to make reversible, lined drapes that length for that amount. LURVE!!

The only color left is the terra cotta color, except in the longest length, and they have a bronze/pearl combo as well in that one. That color looks lovely as well. Check them out here!

I don’t think they look country at all now – just traditional. And loverly. Me likey.

P.S. Are you singing this in your head yet?

That’s right on time it’s trickaaaaaaaaaay…

I love the 90’s.